After hiking up Guadalupe the day before, I decided to do Hunter, went up the Bear Canyon Trail, which as Scott said is steep but a great trail, lots of steps but good tread, not rocky like the other trails. When I got down to the Tejas trail, I decided to hike over to Bush as well, higher but just a plain, rounded summit. 15 miles RT.

We (Shaylee, Kessler, Kim and I) awoke to perfect weather with only a light breeze and clear skies, so it was time to attempt to climb Hunter Peak which is said to have the best views in Texas. We chose to do the loop hike going up Bear Canyon and down the Tejas Trail. Bear Canyon has a nasty reputation as being very steep and difficult and we were a little concerned that it would be challenging for our five year old daughter. We found the trail to be fairly steep, but it wasn’t a problem at all and the rumors of it being difficult were mostly unfounded. It was a slow climb (at least slower than Guadalupe Peak), but we made it up to the summit of Hunter Peak without any problems. The peak did have some grand views and we took a long lunch on the summit.

We returned down the peak via the Bowl and Tejas Trails, but found that we had to cross a fair amount of snow on the rim of The Bowel. After reaching the Tejas Trail it was just a long walk back to the campground. Hunter Peak took us quite a bit longer to climb than Guadalupe did and we got back to camp not that long before sunset.

I really enjoyed the "two sides" of this mountain. The the north the terrain is soft and rolling. To the south the slopes are deeply furrowed with bold cliffs facing Guadalupe Peak. This was a great way to end a nice multi-day backpack trip. Out-hiked via the steep Bear Canyon trail!